The Strokes
Is This It

Distributed by
Rough Trade

Year: 2001

Rating: 8/10

Cat. No: RTRADELP 030

Has there been a keener sense of anticipation awaiting the release of a debut album than The Strokes' Is This It? Not perhaps since Oasis' Definitely Maybe, or before that, The Stone Roses. This time, however, we're not talking working class Manchester but Upper (class) West Side Manhattan. At long last the coolest city in the world can once again boast its own indigenous scene where the likes of The Strokes and fellow travellers such as Moldy Peaches and ARE Weapons are, in their own way, reviving the same buzz that surrounded the city, oh, some 25 years ago.

Where once we had CBGB's and Max's Kansas City we now have The Luna Lounge and The Side Walk Cafe. For Debbie Harry now read Kimya Dawson (both bunny girls in their own ways) and for Joey Ramone now read Julian Casablancas, currently King of New York City. So, is the hip merely hype or is there substance behind the spin? Anyone who has heard their two previously released singles - The Modern Age and Hard To Explain or caught any of their blistering live sets in the UK earlier in the summer will know that this band is actually worthy of all the pre-release praise that has sent the likes of the NME into hyperbolic overdrive.

Is This It - all 35 minutes of it!!! - is packed to the (loft space) rafters with the sort of tunes (pronounced toons, of course) that will have any self-respecting garage rock afficienado jumping for joy. Tracks like Soma and Barely Legal are instant classics - buzzsaw guitars, scatter banging drums all topped off with Julian's suitably bratty vocals spitting out lyrics of inner city ennui and teenage (um) angst. Yeah, we have heard it all before (well, at least those of us old enough to remember punk the first time around) but rarely have we heard it done with so much energy, passion and panache.

Mirroring exactly their current live set (11 songs, no fillers) Is This It provides an ideal snapshot of a band as they are now - it is of the moment and for the moment. The final track on the album, with the merest soupcon of (justified) arrogance, is entitled Take It or Leave It. Only the foolish or the terminally unhip would choose the latter.

Review copyright © Gary Thorogood, 2001.